


hope

by jayeinacross



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayeinacross/pseuds/jayeinacross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kili screams in his sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt on the kink meme, post BOFA: _The hardest thing for Thorin after the battle is hearing Kili crying out for Fili during his nightmares and not being able to wake the boy and tell him Fili will be fine. Because Fili has not woken in the weeks since the battle and the healers are at a lost on how to help him._

Kili screams in his sleep.

He screams like he did when he saw his brother fall in battle, his uncle. When he himself was struck down, his last sight before his vision darkened that of his family lying bleeding on the ground, and it’s a sight that haunts him in his restless sleep.

Thorin is often by Kili’s bedside, despite the healers insisting that he must rest in his own bed. He’s either with Kili or Fili most of the time, and he won’t leave them. With Fili, he sits and fusses a little over his oldest nephew, but mostly he just hopes – and hope is a dangerous thing, a deceiving thing, but it’s all he has. The healers have no reassurances, because Fili’s condition doesn’t change, and he doesn’t wake up, and all Thorin can do is hope that he will open his eyes, that they’ll see him smile again.

With Kili, he does what he can. Thorin wakes him gently as he can from the nightmares, trying to calm him when he jolts from unconsciousness, making sure he doesn’t aggravate his injuries. Holds him until he stops shaking, like he did forty years ago when he dragged Kili out of a river he’d fallen into. Kili wakes and the first words from his mouth are _Fili, where’s Fili?_ And Thorin wants nothing more than to be able to tell him that Fili is fine, that he’ll get better soon, like fifty years ago when Fili fell out of a tree and broke his arm and every other time that Fili’s been hurt more seriously than is usual for a young dwarf.

He wants to tell Kili that Fili is right here next to him, like he has been since the day that his little brother was born, but all Thorin can do is tell him that he’s asleep, that he’ll see him once they’re both a little better.

Kili’s wounds were grave, but he’s recovering slowly. Fili still hasn’t opened his eyes, and Thorin has to tell Kili that the healers say he may never wake up at all. He watches that sink in, watches the way that Kili realizes he might lose the person he’s always relied on to be by his side his entire life.

“I can’t live without him,” Kili says, his voice barely a whisper.

Thorin wants to tell him that he can, he must, that they have to move on, but he can’t force those words out, knowing that he would be lying. 

“I know,” Thorin murmurs instead, and grips Kili’s hand tight.

Kili keeps screaming in his sleep, wordless terror of the things he’s seen on this cursed quest, with only one name on his lips when he wakes, and Thorin closes his eyes and hopes.


End file.
